


topography

by pilynator



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gender Neutral MC - Freeform, post V route - Good ending, you pronouns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 12:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16872795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pilynator/pseuds/pilynator
Summary: Post Mint Eye, Jihyun is uncharted territory and MC needs a map to navigate these unfamiliar waters.For Jihyun x MC week.Day 4: adoration||abroad





	topography

**Author's Note:**

> People seem to really like this one ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ I think of it as a more polished _convivencia_.
> 
> One more to go and I'll have everything I did for JihyunMC week on here.
> 
> **Original A/N:** MC is sappy and Jihyun is a lovable weirdo, what else is new.

Seeing him there, alive and well and all but glowing under the diffuse hallway light, left you feeling oddly prickly. Almost like you were chewing on lightning and your skin was trying to crawl away in anticipation. Sensations were building on top of each other rapidly, like a surreal Jenga tower, and you were dreading what came next.

Step one was surprise. For one blessed moment all your moving parts had been in agreement. Step two, of course, had been falling apart in the face of emotional fission. A faint humming had been building underneath your scalp, an irregular beat inside your chest, the feeling of your ears popping from the change in pressure. Your body was trying to decide on the appropriate reaction. Everything felt distorted, refracted into uncanny shapes, your brain working overtime, trying to draw your attention to the fact that Jihyun was talking and Words Were Important and you should probably say something back  _look at him he’s standing there and he’s waiting for you to say something he’s finished talking and oh my god he’s looking at me he’s tense oh no don’t do that no no no no don’t be tense what was he even talking about oh no please just tell him you’ve missed him say anything he’s still looking over here_

_over here here he’s here he’s here he’s here_

The dam had burst, and you had flung yourself at Jihyun’s stupid, self-sacrificing form with a head start that left you both trying to recover balance. One or both of you might have cried. Jumin offered you a handkerchief later that evening and he looked pretty distressed about it. It must have been some ugly-looking crying. That was only the start of the awkwardness, as you then had to ask Jihyun to repeat his speech. It seemed important, but you had been a rubber band ball of feelings at the time. He had to understand. Please. That earned you a small laugh. It was genuine, a full-bodied kind of laugh that rippled through his limbs. You could see the last echoes of his earlier tension slowly slipping away like a skittering animal in the grass and you smiled warmly at him in response. It struck you that he had thrown back his head for that. It hadn’t been a particularly powerful laugh, nothing to warrant that level of movement. It was almost as if his body was too small to contain his feelings, like even the faintest reaction could overwhelm and had to be expelled. In the funhouse mirror of memory, this became Jihyun Observation #1. Others would soon follow in a cautious process of rediscovery.

The weeks after the party are spent trying to piece yourselves together out of whatever emotional building blocks you’d accumulated over those two years. It’s slow work, steady. It’s not an exploration, but a retreading of old paths while trying to stir some muscle memory. At times, it feels a lot like watching a nature documentary from the inside out, like you’re waiting for someone to close the distance or run away instead of endlessly circling each other.

Sometimes old wounds get torn up again. Distances are hard to judge in the eye of the storm. Someone moves too fast (‘ _hey, Seven has been trying to get in touch with you’_ ), or too slow ( _you call him V once, by accident, and his eyes gain a glassy sheen to them_ ) or not at all ( _Rika hangs between you for the longest time, as remote and overpowering in death as she had been in life, and no one is quite sure where to begin the conversation on **that**_ ). But there’s progress to be made. It’s slow and jerky and uncertain, but it’s progress. Admitting to a fault here, asking for help there, working on coming out into the open without feeling flayed. They’re small moments of vulnerability that start to show up with more frequency, eventually starting to merge in longer stretches of contentment. It’s around this point that you begin to collect observations, adding detail and colour where he had been flattened out by trauma.

He moves differently, for example. Inside Mint Eye, he had skulked about, trying to seem as small as possible, and had been wound tight like a spring even in the gardens, curling up around himself at the slightest hint of attention. In the cabin, he had bounced unsteadily between surfaces, dazed and unfocused, alternating between not being there at all and dominating the mood between those walls. It wasn’t just the lack of drugs or the improved confidence that was making him seem different now, though. Jihyun just took up more space. It was like he’d spent most of those two years growing back into his own body, homesteading his skin and closing the distance he had kept from his nerve endings.

You begin to notice smaller things as well. He’s still unflinchingly polite and soft spoken, that much had remained consistent. Occasionally, though, he’ll say something so cuttingly funny it makes you momentarily forget how to laugh. It gives him a slight teasing edge to his voice, makes him act the tiniest bit smug because he’s managed to surprise you that much. Sometimes it’s prompted by someone who has managed to annoy him enough that the meaner parts of Jihyun, atrophied from lack of use, rear their heads to hunt for blood. Those are rare circumstances, notable by their absence more than anything else. Mostly, he’ll just find an incongruency, a little kink in the world that’s out of step with the rest of it, and it devastates him. He’ll start laughing and just keep going until you eventually join in, doubled over and tearing up in unison until you run out of breath.

He also has an odd sense of fashion, you learn. It’s not bad, not exactly. It consists of a lot of neutral colours and clean, crisp lines that go well together regardless of the situation. His entire wardrobe is versatile and functional and adaptable. He just refuses to fully commit to dress codes. Yoosung makes a face when you tell him about it, tells stories of Jihyun showing up to Christmas events with an ugly holiday sweater thrown on top of a normal outfit or deliberately underdressing for his own exhibitions. Not quite rude, not quite accommodating. It’s hard to align this quietly rebellious streak with the man you had met in that chat room so long ago. You do your best, though, shuffling memories and perceptions around until everything clicks back into place again.

_This_ observation takes a while to build. There’s a lot of variation to it, but you get there in the end. Jihyun’s sense of danger had been blunted beyond recognition. You had assumed his moves back at Mint Eye had been out of a sense of urgency but you were now discovering he just seemed to have a very low capacity for assessing risk to his own person. He would, for example, endlessly fuss over Zen to an extent that was almost comical at times, much like a worried hen would tend to a misbehaving chick. Their friend would meet them for coffee and Jihyun would immediately be at his side, chiding him for taking the motorcycle, absentmindedly brushing off some lint from his shoulders, adjusting the collar of his leather jacket and demanding more care in the future. It invariably leaves Zen flustered and rushing to give reassurances about his good behaviour. It leaves  ** _you_**  confused, more than anything, because you’re quite sure your boyfriend had spent the better part of a week trying to get you to back down from skydiving classes that he had been attending on his own. Jihyun seems to believe that danger only happens to other people. It surprises you a little, but there is an element of recognition in there. Like coming home to a friend after a long journey, like a favourite hoodie on a cold day.

Your understanding of Jihyun grows around the kernel of that reckless week like a pearl around a grain of sand. He gravitates towards unassuming foods, is a surprisingly good singer and has developed a taste for experimental jazz that you just can’t share. He has a couple of marks on his back he keeps a secret from most people, patches of rough skin where the fire had been. He likes going to the beach, hates swimming, says he can’t stand how the salt makes his hair stick out strangely. The puzzle pieces pile up and the two of you soon ease into new habits, feeling your way around each other with meticulous dedication. It’s slow, often confusing work and you grow into it like you would into a new skin.


End file.
